Jobcentre Plus in the recession

Leaning against the wind

How an outfit designed for the good times is coping with bad ones

GET off the Underground at Stratford in east London and you might wonder whether there was a recession on at all. The shopping centre is bustling and builders are hard at work putting up facilities for the Olympic games.

Getty ImagesAnd now to polish those interview skills

There are still plenty of new “customers” at the job centre near the station, however. The Stratford branch is one of 750 run by Jobcentre Plus, the government's job-search and benefit agency. Before the recent jump in unemployment it had been focusing particularly on getting longer-term claimants back into work, says Mel Groves, its acting chief executive. Now it faces a huge challenge in dealing with the new people passing through its doors.

Staff at Stratford are offering special sessions for new claimants of jobseeker's allowance (JSA) on how to search for work online as well as guidance on preparing CVs and interview techniques. Getting a job is a far from hopeless task for those with the right skills and determination. Even in recession, there is great turnover in the labour market. Across the country there are 10,000 new vacancies available at Jobcentre Plus every working day, and half of new JSA claimants leave the register within three months.

People on unemployment benefit must look for work, and the job centre keeps tabs on how they are doing. Once they have been out of work for 13 weeks, staff chivvy them along more. “This is the point when we say they should consider a wider range of occupations, be more realistic about wages and look farther afield,” says Graham Houghton, who is responsible for branches in east London.

Jobcentre Plus itself is “getting bigger by the day because of the recession”, says Mr Groves. With 70,000 employees it is already the government's biggest agency, and it is adding an extra 10,000. Apart from helping JSA claimants, staff are also trying to get other working-age people on benefits into jobs. In particular, lone parents may no longer stay on income support (without looking for work) until their youngest child is 16; that age has been lowered to 12, and will come down to seven by October 2010. Those affected are being moved on to JSA, which means that they must hunt for jobs. The government is also trying to curb the number of people on incapacity benefit, which has stayed stubbornly high at over 2.5m.

Unlike employment services in many countries, Jobcentre Plus brings together job search and the delivery of the main working-age benefits. Created in 2002, the agency was expected to spearhead efforts to get people off welfare and into work. But rather than rising as the government had hoped, the employment rate is now falling, in the past year from 74.8% to 73.6%. The ambition to reduce long-term dependency on government handouts may suffer as Jobcentre Plus struggles to cope with the incoming tide of those who have lost their jobs.